


Simple Rules

by out_there



Category: Sports Night
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-01-12
Updated: 2005-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-15 05:33:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/157535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/out_there/pseuds/out_there
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Casey's always been good with rules.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Simple Rules

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://apathocles.livejournal.com/profile)[**apathocles**](http://apathocles.livejournal.com/) for betaing during the holiday season.

There are some simple rules:

No overt displays of affection.

No staying over more than twice a week.

No mentioning this to anyone at the station.

...They aren't hard to live by. In fact, Casey doesn't find them hard to follow at all.

Casey's always been good with rules. He's always found a certain comfort in having everything clear-cut and defined, knowing precisely what people expect of him. When Dan jokes that it's a pity Charlie didn't come with an instruction book, there's a part of Casey that agrees. If he just had a clear set of guidelines, he's sure he'd be a great father. Instead, he fumbles and tries, and suspects that for each thing he gets right, there's something else he got wrong. He guesses it'll balance out in the end.

So in a way, it makes sense to have rules for this thing with Dan. It's simple and it's easy, and he doesn't have to worry about it. In the office, they're still just Dan and Casey. They talk and write, host their show and joke about whatever comes to mind. Like any friendship that's lasted this long, it's comfortable. Sometimes they squabble, and sometime's they're great together, but it's all reassuringly normal. Nothing's changed.

(No overt displays of affection.)

Sometimes when he looks across the office, he wants touch Dan, trace that soft jaw line or run a hand up Dan's thigh, but then Casey remembers the rules. So he smiles and picks up a pen to keep his fingers occupied, and thinks that he can do this. He knows the rules, so he can do this well.

At night, things are still the same. Some nights, he's too exhausted to do more than stand at Anthony's and make quick goodbyes to everyone, to shoot a brief grin at Dan and say, "See you tomorrow." Other nights, Dan leaves first, looking so weary that Casey wonders how he stays upright. There are still nights when they both get so drunk they can't remember how they got home or where the interesting bruise on Dan's arm came from, when they spend the next day wincing at the light and sounds in the office. Things are still the same, except for the way they aren't.

(No staying over more than twice a week.)

He still invites Dan around to watch the game some nights, but those are the nights that have changed. It's not Danny and Casey watching the game any more. Now Casey has to tape the game and watch it the next morning. Now, it's Dan weighing him down, thrusting and biting, and forcing thoroughly embarrassing sounds out of Casey. It's him clinging to Dan, and devouring him, trying to consume him in any way possible. It's urgent and needy, and it almost makes him feel like a horny teenager again, but it's so good.

It's good like a favourite shirt; it feels good, it looks good, and somehow, it fits. It's good in a way that makes Casey wonder if he was doing this right. He almost wonders if he should have watched more porn when he was younger; if he should have spent years writing notes to himself, little lists of do's and don'ts, of 'lean this way' and 'move your tongue like that.' Maybe he would have learned to kiss Lisa like this.

But kissing Lisa's never been anything like kissing Danny, and deep-down, Casey knows that because of who Danny is, not how Casey kisses.

The oddest thing about this whole affair is that it's so comfortable. It's hot, and thinking about Danny in bed always makes him flush and shift awkwardly in suddenly tight trousers, but it's not actually difficult. Somehow, he'd always expected it would be. That sex this good would have to be. It's just the way that Casey's life usually works out. Nothing comes easy, and anything worth having is hard and complicated.

Danny seems to be the sole exception to that rule. The entire thing is far easier than it should be. Casey's almost, but not quite, concerned about that.

(No mentioning this to anyone at the station.)

Lying to everyone they work with isn't actually hard. There aren't any complex excuses that need to be made. He just doesn't mention it. Really, it's almost like sleeping with Sally. No-one asked if he was sleeping with her, because no-one suspected that he would be. No one asks if he's sleeping with Dan, because everyone considers it mildly ridiculous. And the only person who knows him well enough to ask, to push for answers, is the only one in on the deception.

Casey thinks he should be more troubled about lying to his son, but it's very easy to rationalise and impossibly hard to imagine telling Charlie the truth. Occasionally, he wonders if he should talk to Dan and ask for clarification about that third rule. Ask if Dan really meant 'just don't tell the people we work with,' or 'don't tell anyone, especially the people we work with.' He should ask Dan, but he hasn't.

He's pretty sure it's the second one anyway, and it's oddly relieving to think that he's just following the rules. Right now, the rules make this easy.


End file.
